The Waiting Game

I haven't been posting much lately because besides the Best Buy commercial and revising the script, there hasn't been a whole lot going on. Lately we've just been anxiously waiting for a lot of things. Waiting to find out if The Big Idea got into SCBFF and if we'll win anything, waiting to receive emails from cast and crew we're trying to recruit for Bad, and (most importantly) waiting for the final season of Lost to start.

The Best Buy commercial is turning out really great. I put it all together a couple of nights ago on a computer in the USC library since my laptop isn't fast enough to edit 1080p video. It looks just like a real commercial, we just have to film a few more shots and then get Chris to narrate it and it will be done.

Chipping away at this new draft of the script has been taking a long time. They say that everyone thinks the first draft of their script is amazing right when they finish it, but it doesn't get in good form until many drafts later. This has definitely been true for us with Bad is Bad, there would have been a few too many cringe-worthy moments in the original script for me to bear if we had shot it. The new draft is going to fix and clarify many points in the story, and also make the movie more unique.

At this point, Chris and I are totally confident that the movie will get made no matter what, and that it will be a great movie. Not for our budget, or for some kids, or for our first feature, but just a great movie. Leaps and bounds above anything we've done before. We've been waiting to make a real movie for so many years, now we just have to play the waiting game for about five more months.

Edit: We finished the Best Buy commercial and it turned out great. I've submitted it to the contest, so now we'll be waiting to hear back about that too...

What we've been up to so far...

Since getting back to USC we've developed a schedule of things to get done during the semester. The first thing on the list has been revising the script of our feature Bad is Bad, and Chris and I have been making some great improvements over the past week or so (I think this is the 5th draft). We're also working on getting the rest of the cast/crew for the movie as best as we can from across the country.

This weekend we're going to attempt to film a short commercial for a contest Best Buy is putting on, in order to win some more money for Bad. Besides the contest, we have a couple of other plans to get some money together for the movie. Every bit helps!

Sometime in February we should be filming a simple, funny short film that we've been sitting on for a while, so keep an eye out for that. We've definitely been keeping ourselves busy outside of the classroom, I'm planning for 2010 to be an extremely productive year for us.

The Big Idea - now open to the public!

I decided to just go ahead and post up The Big Idea for everyone to see, because it seems that most film festivals don't disqualify shorts for being shown online. You can find the link to the right in the movies list. I hope you all enjoy, and feel free to leave a comment with your opinion.

In other news, Chris and I just arrived back at USC a couple of days ago, and are already enjoying the 70 degree weather. Tomorrow I'll be submitting The Big Idea to the business film festival we made it for. Wish us luck!

Watch Our Movies Online

A selection of some of our work:

Bad is Bad - 2010
A locally loved suburban family man has to pay for the worst thing he's ever done when two mysterious young criminals break into his home. Our first feature length movie.
Watch (Vimeo)
Watch (Youtube)
Trailer
Featurette

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Snow Job - Nov 2010
Two up and coming drug dealers risk losing their friendship and more on their biggest deal yet.
Watch

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The Salt Run - Oct 2009
Travis just overdosed on heroin. An injection of salt-water might bring him back except...THERE'S NO SALT!
Watch

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Volcano Lamp - June 2008
The (mostly) true story about one crazy weekend for some Godwin High students and grads! Made during our senior year in high school.
Watch part 1
Watch part 2

Movie is finally done and dusted

Last night I finished burning some DVD's and uploading The Big Idea to the net. Now all that's left is to send it in to SCBFF and hope for the best. Unfortunately I have to keep the video private online right now, in case we want to submit it to any other festivals.

Now that everything's done, it's time to start working on some pre-production for our feature-length movie Bad is Bad. We'll need to look into casting one of the main characters in the film and try to secure an important location. Hopefully we make some progress before me and Chris go back to USC on the 9th.

Big things will happen in 2010.